Seducing Sheldon
by Eve Davidson
Summary: Penny comes to realize the extent of her feelings toward Sheldon during the adhesive ducks episode, and now has to choose between Leonard and Sheldon.
1. Chapter 1

It was in the car going back home, Sheldon driving so slowly and carefully, that it occurred to her. Her arm in its sling rested in her lap, and she could barely keep her eyes open, the drugs they had given her making her feel sleepy and like she was floating, somehow. She could see Sheldon beside her, both hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white. She licked her lips. He was afraid to drive. That was why he didn't do it, he was afraid. But because she needed him to drive her to the ER he had, despite the fear. In her drugged out, loopy state it almost made her cry. He had done that for her, was doing this, driving basically in his lane but weaving a little. His stops and starts were jerky. He was leaning over the steering wheel, trying to peer through the windshield, looking everywhere. Penny knew that experienced drivers didn't do that, they looked in specific areas that impacted safety. In his eyes she saw this intense concentration, different from when he was working on some equations trying to figure out God knew what regarding quantum mechanics and sub atomic particles. She didn't know what he did, couldn't even pretend to understand it, but when he was doing that he didn't have this desperate uncertainty. How could he so easily do those weird physics things and barely be able to drive? She had been driving since she was 14, driving cars on her family's property and driving down deserted back roads with boys years before she got her license.

He came to a jerky stop beside the curb, their building looming in the distance. Penny felt too tired to open her eyes, never mind opening the door and walking up all those flights of stairs. Her bed seemed an eternity away, an ocean and a continent away. She was content to just stay here in the passenger seat of her breaking down little car.

"Penny?" Sheldon had opened her door and was leaning over her, peering anxiously at her when she opened her eyes.

"No, Sheldon, let me stay here..."

"An impossibility. You would be sleeping in an uncomfortable position, not conducive to your injured shoulder healing, and you would be placing yourself in harm's way,"

"Harm's way?" she said, shifting her weight, attempting to overcome the pain and the drugs to gain enough momentum to get out of her car.

"Yes. You could get mugged,"

He was right, of course. He usually was. So she allowed him to help her out of the car, and he tugged her gently to her feet. He was so gentle. He touched her like she was breakable, some sort of glass trinket. He stood on the side of her that was uninjured, and he let her lean on him while he lightly held her good arm. She leaned into him, and even through the drug soaked haze and the pain that kept spiking through the wrapped gauze high of the pain killers, through all of that she still felt him tense up against her. She thought of the previous Christmas when she got him the napkin signed by Leonard Nimoy. His reaction to that far exceeded her expectations, but she did have expectations. And she had lied. Leonard Nimoy hadn't just wandered into her section of The Cheesecake Factory. She had sought him out at one of those Star Trek nerd functions they were always having. She had asked Stewart months before Christmas to tell her if Leonard Nimoy was set to appear anywhere within driving distance. She knew Spock was Sheldon's favorite Star Trek character, and she knew that the character was more than his favorite. She knew that he identified with the character. She knew he prized the logical side of his mind far over the annoying human emotions side, and she knew that Sheldon had trouble understanding and dealing with emotions.

Now, leaning against him and smelling that talcum powder scent, and the scent of his shampoo and soap, and the fresh laundered scent of his clothes, she asked herself what she had really been up to. For Leonard she had gone down to the local motorcycle shop and got him those lessons, and that gift was kind of funny but kind of cruel. She was making fun of him and the things he couldn't do, couldn't excel at, and those things always tended to be the more overtly masculine and the things that required physical skills. Her gift to Leonard had reinforced his shortcomings, his uncool and nerdy nature, his pale, uncoordinated way of being. But her gift to Sheldon, which took months of planning and an entire day stuck in a two door car with Stewart, and hours in line with more Star Trek fans than she thought could possibly exist, that gift was an acknowledgement of how he saw himself.

It was a lot of stairs, and she had to lean heavily on Sheldon to make it up all of them. She could feel his lean muscles under his layers of clothes. He wrapped his arm around her and she felt protected, comforted, and surprised that he was so strong. She viewed them, all of them, Leonard, Raj, Howard, and Sheldon, as weak nerds. She always forgot that they were men, and strong because of that.

Her legs felt weak by the time they made it up all the stairs, and Sheldon glanced at her before fumbling for the apartment key that was on her keyring. He looked at her with concern, but it was educated concern. She felt that he was measuring her rate of respirations, that he was assessing her coloring and her tolerance to the trek up the stairs and the combination of the torn rotator cuff and the pain killers and the muscle relaxers. With that glance she felt safe again, she felt that if she was in any sort of danger he could help her. Did she feel this way with Leonard?

Inside the apartment, and he made the crack about her not driving heavy machinery and not choking on her own drool, and she made the crack about him helping her into bed, but was it just a crack? Was it just a joke, or was it a wish and a desire disguised in humor?

It occurred to her that she liked Sheldon, not just as a friend and a neighbor and someone slightly to extremely annoying. She liked Sheldon, she liked the way he spoke, the strange rhythm of the things he said, she liked the light blue hue of his eyes, she liked how tall he was and how slender and how pale. She liked that he would go so far out of his comfort zone for her, driving her to and from the ER. As the last of the lyrics of "Soft Kitty" were wrapping up she felt herself drifting off into a drug induced sleep, but if she wasn't so out of it she wondered if she would have the courage to seduce him. She wondered if she was willing to give up Leonard to pursue Sheldon.


	2. Chapter 2

Penny woke up the next morning, the sun shining through the partially open blind right into her face. She groaned and rolled over and jerked in pain when she wrenched her hurt shoulder. For a split second she was confused by the pain and the limited mobility and the constrictions of the sling. She was confused by the thick cotton taste in her mouth. Then she remembered. She remembered calling out for Sheldon when she fell, and how she was scared he wasn't there or wouldn't be able to hear her. She had known that Leonard had went camping with Howard and Raj to watch some astrological thing.

She thought about how gentle Sheldon had been with her, how he had driven her to the ER and she smiled, thinking of his strained concentration in the driver's seat. But the smile faded as she thought of her new predicament. She had feelings for Sheldon, and maybe they had been there all along and she just hadn't acknowledged them, but she was acknowledging them now. Her stomach did that funny flip flop thing when she thought about him. Where did that leave her? And what about Leonard?

Leonard. He was so sweet, so awkward, so deliciously nerdy. They all were. But Leonard, the way he hid in his hoodies, they way he could barely look at her, the tentative way he kissed, the way he rested his hands on her shoulders. She liked Leonard, she liked him a lot. But she didn't get the same roller coaster feeling from him that she did with Sheldon. What was she going to do?

She got up, feeling off balance with her arm in the sling. She felt a twinge of pain, the meds from last night all worn off. She made her way to the kitchen and dumped some coffee in her coffee maker, and she sat on the couch listening to the gurgles and hisses as it brewed.

Knock knock knock. Her heart fell to her stomach. What was wrong with her?

"Penny," Knock knock knock, "Penny," Knock knock knock, "Penny,"

Sheldon.

Her door was locked, of course it was, or was it? Sheldon couldn't have locked it without her keys and they were on the counter, and she could feel his frustration that she didn't have a bowl to put them in like he did. She wouldn't have to get up.

"Come in!"

He opened the door and peered in at her, and she wondered about his trepidation until she realized it was quite a bit before 11. He stood in the doorway, a white paper bag in his hand.

"It's okay, Sheldon, I"m up," she said. He looked down, nodded, and stepped further into her apartment.

"How is your shoulder this morning?" he said, looking at her suddenly, looking right into her eyes. His eyes were so blue, such a pale blue. Such sudden and direct eye contact was rare with him, and he only maintained it for a moment before looking down again.

"It hurts," she said. He took another step toward her.

"I assumed it would, so I took the liberty of filling your prescriptions for pain medication," So that was what was in the little bag he held. She saw the official looking pharmacy papers stapled to the outside of the bag. She didn't remember getting any prescriptions for medication, but they must have given them to him.

"Oh, Sheldon, thank you,"

"Do you need one now?" he said, still looking down but his eyes were looking up at her. She felt like she couldn't breath. God, he was good looking. How had she not noticed it before? Why had she settled for Leonard?

"Yeah," A pain pill would go nicely with her coffee. Her shoulder had this sharp, radiating pain. And it was getting worse. She almost felt like she was inside of the pain, wrapped in a blanket of pain.

He went to her little kitchen and hunted around for a glass, filled it with water, and opened the bag. She watched him, watched how his long and slender fingers carefully opened the bag from the top, watched how he reached in and took out the dark amber bottle and read the directions. She noticed how he had a kind of sleepy look, but she knew that belied the almost frightening intelligence that he had. He was smarter than Leonard. They were both geniuses but she knew that Sheldon was smarter. She knew his IQ was higher, but it was more than that. It was hard to define, and funny that she should be so aware of it. Leonard was frighteningly intelligent as well. Sometimes when she overheard them talking to each other, although they were speaking English, she could hardly understand them.

"The dose can vary based on your degree of pain," Sheldon said to her, his face serious, and she almost laughed. Didn't he know her at all? Even if she was having just the slightest twinge of pain she would take the maximum dose. If she could come close to floating like she had last night after she took the meds in the ER, she would. Of course she would. It was all about escape. But that wouldn't go over with him. She could play the game, any game. She got what she wanted.

"It hurts really bad, almost like last night," she said, and she wasn't lying. He nodded and shook out the pills, and brought it all to her.

"Here," he said, and in the palm of his hand were two fairly good sized white pills. Hopefully it was some morphine based pain killer.

"What are they?" she said, taking them and the water her offered her and swallowing them down.

"Percocet,"

She wanted coffee but didn't feel like getting it. Sheldon had gone back to her little kitchen and was closing the top of the pill bottle, and folding the papers from the pharmacy that were attached to the bag, and throwing the bag away, and putting the pill bottle neatly next to her coffee pot. Did he ever stop cleaning?

"Hey, uh, Sheldon?" she said, tilting her head as she said his name.

"Yes, Penny?"

"Could you get me a cup of coffee?" she said in her sweetest voice. He glanced at her and she could almost feel him thinking that she was hurt, and it fell under the social category of getting someone a hot beverage. But she also saw that he wasn't too pleased about it because it was her apartment and not his, so was it really his responsibility to get it for her? He was so funny. But it sometimes went too far. She saw how Leonard catered to him, followed all of his arbitrary rules so he wouldn't get upset. She wasn't sure that Leonard was right. Sheldon was too rigid in how he wanted things and how he ordered the world. It would be good for him if that was shaken up a bit more. In the same way it would be good for her if she had a little more order to her world. Sometimes the swirling chaos got away from her. This is why she wold be good with Sheldon, this is how they could complement each other, and push each other to grow and change in beneficial ways. She didn't just want him because his eyes were so blue, and his legs were so long, and his bottom lip was so full, and his skin was smooth and pale, and his voice made her feel like tiny butterflies were hatching in her stomach.

Without a word he was getting her coffee, and he was making it precisely how she liked it, three big scoops of sugar and a lot of cream. He didn't drink coffee as a rule, or alcohol. He was like a child in that way. It was so sweet. She licked her lips and felt the pain pills beginning to do their work, and the sharpest of the pain had eroded away.


	3. Chapter 3

After he handed her her coffee, holding it carefully so he wouldn't spill it, he had left. She hadn't wanted him to but she couldn't think of what to say to make him stay. There was another difference between Sheldon and Leonard. Leonard would coming running to her like a little puppy dog and stay as long as she would let him. Sheldon, on the other hand, would stay exactly as long as he wanted to and no longer. He was aloof. And that brought her to another thought. Was he even interested in her? Was he even capable of being interested in anyone in that way? She bit her lip and sipped her coffee. It didn't seem so.

This was a challenge she wasn't used to. Men usually just fell at her feet, there was no effort on her part. Sheldon would definitely require effort. She sipped, she flipped through the channels, she felt the two pain pills Sheldon had given her start to do their work. She wondered just how far she could get with Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

What if he wouldn't be interested in her? What if she wasn't smart enough, what if her interests were too far from his? What if, what if? There were no answers for all the what ifs that suddenly crowded her mind. What if he shied from her advances? What if he didn't even realize that they were advances? What if she couldn't figure out how to reel him in. She'd never tried to reel in anybody and she wanted to start with a socially challenged genius? Really? She shook her head, her blond hair brushing her cheeks.

She showered, gingerly soaping up her hurt shoulder and arm, cringing when she moved it the wrong way. She still didn't have any adhesive ducks or anything else to make her tub less slippery. What had Sheldon called it? A low co-something of static electricity? What had he said? How dumb must she seem to him? He would never want her for that reason alone. The thought of how her intelligence must seem to him almost made her cry, she could feel the lump in her throat. She knew how his intelligence seemed to her. He was the single most intelligent person she had ever met, he was smarter than Leonard, Howard, and Raj. Of course he was smarter than everyone else she had ever met. He understood things she had never even heard of and couldn't begin to fathom if she did. Driving didn't matter. Any idiot could drive. Being social didn't matter. Kids who could hardly read, kids who couldn't understand concepts and themes and whatever else, kids like that could be social. Had she been a kid like that?

She managed not to fall despite feeling off balance and being heavily medicated. She got dressed, dried her hair with a towel and only one hand, blinked her eyes at her reflection. She wanted to kiss Sheldon. Her stomach did a funny lift/drop at the thought, she felt like she was on the top curve of the roller coaster as it pauses there for the split second, and then it goes rushing down. She could imagine tilting her head up to him, inhaling that super clean aroma he had, feeling his soft lips brush against her own, her eyes closing.

How could she make him like her? He thought she was dumb. He thought Howard was dumb, and Howard was a genius like the rest of them. What chance did she have? She thought of her school days, how she would zone out in class, her social life taking precedence over her studies. She thought about her brief time in community college, how she couldn't quite follow what the professors were saying. Maybe she had an undiagnosed learning disorder. Maybe. What would Sheldon find attractive about that?

Back in her living room, her wet hair drip drying, the T.V. on as comforting background noise. She went into her little kitchenette and found her pill bottle, read the back to see when she could have two more. Sheldon. Shit. He may be a lost cause. She knew what would attract him, and it wasn't her shiny blond hair or gorgeous little figure or bright eyes. It wasn't the lilt of her voice or the way she would tilt her head or her habit of touching someone's arm. What would attract him was intelligence.

Screw it then. She watched the clock for her next dose and watched re-runs of the harmless sitcoms she watched as a little kid, the electronic equivalent of a blanket with silk around the edge. She'd just have to be happy with Leonard, and she supposed she could be. And that way no one would get hurt. Leonard wouldn't be hurt by her betrayal and by Sheldon's betrayal, and Sheldon would continue to be oblivious. If she was hurt it was her own fault.


End file.
